AJW 001 - Bottlenose dolphin

AJW 001 - Bottlenose dolphin

March 5, 2005

The Coast Guard at Wrightsville Beach called the UNCW stranding pager at 7:15am on the morning of March 5, 2005 to report a live stranded 5-6ft bottlenose dolphin in Carolina Beach, NC. The dolphin died at approximately 8:15, shortly before the UNCW team arrived on site. It was transported to UNCW for necropsy.

The dolphin appeared to be of the offshore type: speckled belly, short snout, flippers difficult to “tuck”. Onlookers that observed the beaching of this animal reported that it was with a group of other dolphins that were swimming very close to shore but continued swimming south along the beach.